JNU students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya (unlike Kanhaiya Kumar whose videos had been doctored to wrongly frame him) had earlier defended calling Afzal Guru a martyr and chanting slogans for India’s ‘barbadi’. This is deeply problematic and does amount to sedition in my view, though I would respect the judicial verdict on whether or not this amounted to sedition, and I believe that those who actually shouted those slogans deserve legal punishment. Communal hate speech is not always loaded with content of directly provoking violence, nor is it always followed by retaliatory violence from the other side, but is punishable nonetheless and so should this be. These anti-India slogans too were capable of provoking a violent backlash against those raising them by that yardstick. Also, there is some confusion about the very nature of sedition. There are other laws specifically dealing with violence, vandalism or even conspiring to that effect, and sedition is about expression by way of words or other means (like paintings or gestures) to the effect of seeking to undermine the rule of law under the constitutional setup, and does not even explicitly necessitate advocating violence (which calling Afzal a “martyr” does, by the way, amount to), but even advocating disorder or disturbance of law and order comes within its ambit as per the landmark Kedar Nath judgment, and Article 19(2) of our constitution explicitly mentions that freedom of speech and expression can actually be restricted for the sake of the unity and integrity of India. While I understand that free speech fundamentalists may desire sedition, hate speech, outraging religious sentiments etc. as all worthy of being off the statute-book similar to the United States, that has no bearing on the legal validity of the application of existing laws in India till such time as they are applicable. Senior college students are adults like anyone else, and those entrusted with voting for India’s future are expected to not defend terrorism or seek India’s ‘barbadi’.

Also, while it may indeed be intellectually fashionable to talk about humanism without nationalism (for nation-states are, after all, man-made constructs), till such time as nation-states are real, they need nationalist cohesion for progress and security, and just as loving your family over other humans is not inhuman, nor is identification with one’s country, and those Muslim rightists pleased by strong denunciations of nationalism in general should indeed realise that those critiques would even apply to pan-Muslim nationalism, with territorial nationalism based on a shared political and economic destiny being much more rational, and global pan-Muslim nationalism of the “Muslim ummah” variety is anachronistic, even going by the Muslim scriptures, as I have discussed here (I know that some Muslims would question whether I, as not being a Muslim, can give my own interpretation of Islam, but if non-Muslims are not expected to study and analyze Islam, how do Muslims expect non-Muslims to not have prejudiced views about their faith?). Country-oriented nationalism does not have to be and shouldn’t be the type presupposing the morality of your government in the realms of foreign policy and engagement with secessionist forces to be axiomatic, only complaining about its naiveté or passivity, and one should be open to hearing out counter-narratives, but counter-narratives cannot entail supporting attacking the parliament, and seeking the ‘barbadi’ of a nation, which is a section of humanity, isn’t humanistic either.

Often, opponents of any kind of statist nationalism cite Tagore and Gandhi to validate their views, but what they do is to present a misinterpreted version of what Tagore and Gandhi said. Tagore did indeed lament as to how the division of the world into nation-states became a cause of antagonism, and how nationalist biases often prevented impartial, humanistic assessments in an era that saw two world wars, but Tagore was very clear on the point that human nature had its doses of both good and bad (in his own words – “We must admit that evils there are in human nature, in spite of our faith in moral laws and our training in self-control”), which is why both good and evil shall always exist, and he did not advocate any utopian ideas of a world without borders, presuming that we can all actually possibly happily have a totally fair and reasonable central government accommodating the concerns of the entire human race with all its diversity, when in reality, provinces within countries also have bitter conflicts over resources, and there will always be administrative demarcations of territory for governance. Tagore pointed out in his popular essay on nationalism–

“I have often been blamed for merely giving warning, and offering no alternative. When we suffer as a result of a particular system, we believe that some other system would bring us better luck. We are apt to forget that all systems produce evil sooner or later, when the psychology which is at the root of them is wrong. The system which is national today may assume the shape of the international tomorrow; but so long as men have not forsaken their idolatry of primitive instincts and collective passions, the new system will only become a new instrument of suffering.”

While Tagore’s writings make it seem that he was against nationalism per se, an analysis would reveal that he was opposed to chauvinistic worldviews of asserting the infallibility of one’s civilisation, refusing to learn from others, and jingoistic antipathy to fellow human beings of a certain other state, but he did identify with and appreciate his Indian identity.

Likewise, as for Gandhi, while he disliked the institution of the state as an instrument of violence, he did consider the state to be a necessary evil (for human beings do need to be regulated to check crime at the very least), and suggested a decentralised state pattern based on indirect elections in the form of concentric circles with the village at the centre, but not doing away with the idea of government. Gandhi even supported state coercion in the context of land reforms, though he wanted the land reforms to be voluntary as far as possible, and Gandhi too, like Tagore, did identify with and appreciate his Indian identity.

nder the same constitution. Not to use whataboutism as a line of argument but we didn’t see the left-liberals claiming to be free speech fundamentalists routing for those shouting those slogans routing for the likes of Kamlesh Tiwari arrested for hurting religious sentiments of Muslims.

For those questioning the judicial verdict, the Supreme Court did not declare that they were awarding the death penalty to Afzal only on the basis of “collective conscience” and without evidence. There was a reference to “collective conscience” to justify awarding him the death penalty rather than a life term, and that had no relevance to establishing his guilt, which was based on evidence admissible under the Indian Evidence Act.

Karmanye Thadani is the Consulting Editor (Politics) of Khurpi. Hailing from New Delhi, he holds a law degree from the prestigious Gujarat National Law University (GNLU), Ahmedabad. He has worked with several leading public policy and foreign policy think-tanks in India and authored/co-authored several books (namely 'Anti-Muslim Prejudices in the Indian Context: Addressing and Dispelling Them', 'Women and Sport in India and the World: Examining the History and Suggesting Policy Reforms', 'Onslaughts on Free Speech in India by Means of Unwarranted Film Bans' and 'The Right to Self-Determination of Pakistan's Baloch: Can Balochistan Go the Kosovo Way?'), articles and research papers. He has also been involved in making a television serial on the Indian freedom fighter Maulana Azad.

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